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Jane Goodall: How One Woman Changed Conservation Forever · How To Protect The Ocean

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This is going to be a little bit of a different episode.
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Like many of you today, I found out that Dr.
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Jane Goodall passed away at 91.
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She was on an American speaking tour at the age of 91.
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She was still speaking up for the animals, for nature, for the ocean, for the planet.
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And today, I'm going to do something that I don't do often.
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I'm going to just kind of just speak off the top of my head.
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There's not going to be any editing.
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This is just going to be raw talking about
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Jane Goodall, the work that she did, how it changed the way we do conservation today, and how she inspired millions of people throughout her career up until the day she passed away
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to do better for the ocean, for the planet, for nature, and for animals.
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We're going to talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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Let's start the show.
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Hey everybody, welcome back to a somber episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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I'm your host, Angel Luan, and this is the podcast where we talk about what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a
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better ocean by taking action.
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And on today's episode, we are gonna be talking about somebody who inspired you, who has continued to inspire me, even in her passing.
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Dr.
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Jane Goodall is uh a person that is known worldwide.
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She has far reaching uh influence within not only the scientific community, but also the advocacy community, just everybody.
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When you look at Dr.
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Jane Goodall doing interviews, I was just watching an interview she did recently on the Jimmy Fallon show, on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
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And she just has this poise about her.
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She has this delicateness about her.
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but she also has this strength in her that we just, it's very difficult to duplicate.
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It's something that you just know you're at peace with when you're speaking with this person and you're listening each and every time she speaks.
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Because when she does speak, and she spoke often, she spoke of the truth, she spoke of what animals need.
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how we as humans need to do, what we need to do to protect them and how we can influence that protection.
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And no matter what is happening around the world, Jane Goodall was always looking out for the animals.
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She was always looking out for nature.
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She was looking out for you and I.
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And that was what was great about her, is that she had the ability to speak out for the animals without pissing anybody off.
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without getting in everybody's face, yelling, without screaming, she would just speak.
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Speak the truth, she would speak the science, and speak to what was coming from her heart.
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And I feel like that just inspired people even more to do what she was talking about.
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To follow the science, to follow conservation efforts, to follow the feelings of animals.
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And I think that nowadays when people see younger people than me that didn't grow up with Jane Goodall in their generation, and they look at her and they see this older woman who's
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speaking up for the planet, and they may or may not know some of her contributions to the conservation community, to nature in general.
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And I think it's important that we discuss that.
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So I did come up, you know,
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There was a lot stuff I didn't know about her.
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knew her growing up.
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I knew she was the one, the scientist that lived among chimpanzees.
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And that was unprecedented at that time.
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People were like, this woman at the time was probably like, probably, people were probably thinking that she's crazy.
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It was a little bit before my time in the sixties, but they're like, what are you talking about?
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Like, what are you doing to be a part of this?
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and like what are doing for science?
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And so it's really interesting.
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So I'm gonna talk a little bit about her life.
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So she was born in 1934 in London, England as her name is Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall, so known as Jane.
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And from a young age, she was fascinated by animals and the natural world.
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She dreamed of Africa and studying wildlife.
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This is from a young girl in London, England.
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She traveled to Kenya in 1957.
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as is around her early 20s and later met anthropologist, Louis Leakey, who encouraged her to observe wild chimpanzees in Tanzania.
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So in 1960, she began field work in Gombe Stream National Park uh in Tanzania to observe chimpanzees in their natural habitat.
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Contrary to prevailing scientific norms of the time, she gave individual chimpanzees
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names so she called them Fifi, David Greybeard, all these different names and rather than you know numbers like a lot of scientists would and treating them as individuals with
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personalities and I think this is what really separates us.
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This is the beginning of what separates her from the rest of the scientific world.
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Her observations revealed behaviors previously believed unique to humans so the use of tools so like what would be termite fishing?
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used for hunting, social bonding, she observed, maternal care, emotional gestures like kissing, hugging, patting, and evidence of intelligence and culture in these chimpanzee
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troops.
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Her long-term data set, collected over decades, has become one of the most important longitudinal studies in primatology and behavioral science.
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If you think about when we do science,
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We are treating everything unbiasedly, right?
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So if you think about when you put out a scientific study for all the scientists listening there, people who have done science in grade school, middle school, high school,
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everything is laid out.
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You have your materials and methods.
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But when you're dealing with animals, you're dealing with characters.
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We're dealing with individuals who all have their own unique characteristics.
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But that wasn't really observed back then.
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You would number them so you don't show any bias.
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Because when you name something, you have like an emotional attachment to it.
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And there could be considered some bias in that.
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So when you name something and then that bias comes out, that could come out in your scientific paper.
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But she did the opposite.
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She named them.
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She lived with them.
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She observed them just as she was one of their own troops.
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Right?
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And she just sat there looking and taking notes and looking at what they did.
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And she just observed like these these
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ability to use tools to do things like you know termites or feel like going for termites or going for fishing she'd like for hunting social bonding all this different stuff
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maternal care they showed emotions they showed characteristics which was really interesting that changed the game of how we saw animals as sentient beings instead of you
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know something that was we were higher than we were above them
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That was very prevalent back in the 60s, 50s and 60s.
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So in 1977, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute, focused on wildlife conservation, habitat protection, primate welfare, and community-based conservation.
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In 1991, she launched Roots and Shoots, a youth program to empower young people to take action for animals, people, and the environment.
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Over time, it grew to thousands of groups worldwide.
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Think about this, as one person, one scientist, that is indeed a scientist, having the ability to empathize and reach out to people and the way she told stories.
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I mean, the amount of stories she must have had living with these chimpanzees and the way she told stories captivated millions of people around the world.
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in 1991, when we didn't have social media, we didn't have internet, like, prevalent,
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She had thousands of people, thousands of groups, not just people, groups worldwide taking part in Roots and Shoots.
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This was huge.
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This was a huge, huge thing for one woman to do and her uh organization and her institute, the Jane Goodall Institute.
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She engaged globally in speaking, writing, environmental activism, campaigning for habitat protection against deforestation, for ethical treatment of animals.
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She went for climate awareness and for youth environment.
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involvement, sorry.
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Her honors included she was Dame Commander of the British Empire for services to environment and conservation.
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She got the Kyoto Prize.
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She got the Tyler Prize for environmental achievement.
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And in 2025, she was awarded the U.S.
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Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously.
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So late.
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So her later years, even into advanced age, she remained active, traveling, speaking and inspiring new generations to care and.
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to care about nature and conservation, even up until her passing, which was just today or yesterday, she was still speaking.
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She was still doing her own doing her thing.
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And she looked healthy.
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You know, she looked like she was going on doing her own thing and speaking up for the environment.
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So her recent death prompted tributes worldwide.
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You're to see a lot of acknowledging of her work and how she reshaped humanity.
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Her legacy impact is going to be felt for a long time.
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So her work upended assumptions that only humans use tools and had complex emotions.
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She showed that animals are not mere, know, automatons, automatons, guess is what it's called, but beings with individuality, emotional depth, social bonds and capacities for
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culture.
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She inspired many scientists, especially women to enter the fields of primatology, ecology, conservation and animal cognition.
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You got to remember again at this time.
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the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, even in the 2000s, women were not prominent within science.
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To see people like Jane Goodall, right?
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To see uh people like, oh, I'm trying to think of her name.
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can't think of her name.
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I think.
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You gotta remember in the 70s, you gotta remember in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, even in the 2000s, women were not up until the 2000s really, women were not prominent within
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science.
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They weren't encouraged to go into science.
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There weren't a lot of programs that were dedicated to science.
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Field work was not considered to be quote unquote for women.
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And then you have Jane Goodall, you have women like Dr.
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Sylvia Earle, Dr.
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Jane Goodall that came out and were in the field.
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were doing underwater things like like Sylvia Earl were advocating for uh...
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for animals were showing that like in terms of Jane's case were showing that animals were sentient beings these were huge impacts on on on young females young women young girls to
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say hey you know what I know I can be a scientist because Jane and Sylvia are there as well and I'm watching them on TV and I'm seeing what they're up to
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So her institutions continue to drive conservation, education, rehabilitation, community engagement, and youth empowerment globally.
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You would think at the age of 91, she would just kind of hang it up and just kind of relax and enjoy her retirement.
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She has done so much for conservation in general, whether it's ocean conservation or land conservation or freshwater conservation.
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She's done it all.
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But she continued to do what she wanted to do, which was protect the environment up until her death today or yesterday.
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I don't know when she actually passed away.
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but until the announcement of her death today.
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She was still on a speaking tour.
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And she could have stopped, but she continued to do that.
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like in Canada, just to show you what she's done over the last few years, she's helped shape the Jane Goodall Act, which is to ensure that zoos in Canada have specific
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certifications to get rid of all these private zoos that don't follow the rules, that don't follow the research or the science, don't have the ability to...
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treat the animals and make welfare their top priority.
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You know, have zoos like the Toronto Zoo, the Calgary Zoo, uh there's a zoo in Quebec, there's Vancouver Zoo.
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All those zoos work together to ensure that welfare is at the prime top, like is at the primary focus of their research to make sure that each and every animal their welfare is
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looked out for and that's what they do.
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That's part driven in...
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by things like that are said in the Jane Goodall Act.
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These are the zoos that are breaking the barriers and learning about welfare of specific animals that they take care of.
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Other private zoos don't.
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They're not able to do that.
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Whether they want to or not, it doesn't matter.
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They should be making sure that the welfare of the animals are a top priority.
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And the Jane Goodall Act does that, and more.
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And that was by Jane Goodall, by the Jane Goodall Institute.
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You know, and I think that's important to know that she did this in her late 80s and 90s, in early 90s.
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Like that's incredible for someone to do that and continue to do that.
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You know, so her life is a model of how rigorous science and advocacy can coexist.
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And next episode I'm gonna be talking about someone who emailed me who said that her mentors were telling her not...
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to pursue like change in climate change, even though that's why she got into science in the first place.
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Jane Goodall is a perfect model of how science and advocacy can coexist and how one person's curiosity and courage can ripple outward into decades of global influence.
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Just by sitting with chimpanzees and observing what true science is and recording those observations, right, it's not manipulating anything, she's just sitting and observing.
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She did what she had to do to really advocate for chimpanzees, really advocate for primates, understand the challenges that they had and also the beauty that's within them,
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the ability to be able to live the way they lived, the complexity of their relationships with each member of the troop and the hierarchy that they had within that troop or within
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those troops.
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and being able to see how they're able to think things through and be able to use tools and be able to have intimate relationships in a variety of different emotional levels.
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That is huge.
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That is not just something that you come up with.
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That is something that you sit and you take your time and you are involved in nature.
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I think, you know, I don't know what she was like before, but I can imagine how, you know, sitting with chimpanzees and understanding
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what they were about and who they were and being in nature on a constant basis.
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As a human living with chimpanzees, made her appreciate nature that much more.
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I find like when you speak to people who are out in nature more, it doesn't matter if they're scientists, it doesn't matter if they're conservationist advocates, hikers,
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mountain bikers, skiers, fishers, hunters, they love being out in nature.
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That's one of their major parts and they're great advocates.
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for protecting nature because that's what they love to be in.
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It's not just the sport that they're doing or whatever they're doing.
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They actually enjoy just sitting in nature.
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If you think about what hunting's about, you may get one or two animals that you kill, but you're sitting in nature for more time, like 14, 15 hours a day, and you're just sitting
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in nature and enjoying nature.
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And I understand if people have problems with people fishing and killing fish and people hunting and killing animals, but they're sitting in nature.
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They love nature.
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and they become very big advocates, these organizations, Ducks Unlimited is a great example of an organization that is out there to protect wetlands, to protect duck habitat,
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to protect other types of habitat that will ensure that those pieces of nature are perfect, right?
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That they're protected.
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And that brings a lot.
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And to think that...
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This type of thought process, this type of science, this type of conservation wasn't done until people like Jane Goodall started to speak out and started to publish their work.
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That's when we started to really understand how it was really important.
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And understanding how people are important.
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She worked with local communities in Tanzania to say, let's help protect these chimpanzees, let's help protect these primates.
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because it was important for them.
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She taught us to understand that protecting animals and protecting nature protects us as human beings.
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We are not above nature.
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We are as a part of nature within the confines of our planet and within the food web.
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We are in there and we are not above, but we are just lying within.
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And yes, we do have a ton of influence and that brings us with the responsibility to do better for the planet.
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And that's a huge part, that's a huge play in what we need to do to continue to protect our planet.
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To challenge ourselves to protect the planet better.
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To challenge our politicians to protect the planet better.
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And to challenge us to make better choices for the environment on a daily basis.
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This is that she didn't just talk about how one person or one entity had to change.
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She talked about how we need to change.
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And the very interesting aspect of it all is that when you look at how things were really into it, you look at what's going on in the world.
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She used hope as a strategy, not just something to be naive.
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She faced poaching, habitat loss, extinction, and still said, I am not an optimist.
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I'm a realist who has hope.
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Her hope was built on data.
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and determination.
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So despair is a luxury we just can't afford.
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Climate change, ocean acidification, biodiversity loss, the odds feel overwhelming at times.
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But Jane Goodall knew and showed us that change begins with showing up.
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With one person in a forest, one child planting trees, one story that moves hearts.
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This is what she did.
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So we need ocean storytellers who like her carry both truth
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and belief.
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If you look at how, you're probably Andrew, you're talking about Jane Goodall, she looked after primates.
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How is it going to help when we look at the ocean?
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Well, a lot of her stuff really helps as an ocean.
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The animals that are individuals with emotions, culture, and value, you look at dolphins that have different dialects and cultural traditions.
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We never would have thought of that before.
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Octopuses solve
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puzzles and may we now think may even dream.
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Whales mourn their dead and form long life bonds, like lifelong bonds.
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Like this is what she helped.
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She helped understand empathy is a scientific tool and a moral tool.
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So how does that help the ocean?
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Well, sea turtle tangled ghost netting really tugs at our emotional strings, right?
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Or when we saw the sea turtle with the plastic uh fork or plastic
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straw on its nose and having that tugged out and seeing the pain that it felt.
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A mother whale starving because her prey moved with warming currents, that all changed the way we look at it, how badly we feel.
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Remember in, I uh think it was like Blue Ocean or Blue Planet 2, when Sir David Attenborough was narrating the death of a whale.
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that had a bunch of plastic in it.
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And he was narrating its last moments.
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And it brought everybody to tears.
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Everybody who's watching on social media was like, this is the worst thing, we need to do something about it.
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That empathy, we use that scientifically and morally to say, hey, we need to use these tools to help fund more research, to help fund more action.
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We're seeing a seabird feeding its chicks with plastic.
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That makes us.
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empathize with what the problems that they're having.
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know, conservation also must include people.
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I talked about that.
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That's what she does.
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So co-designing marine protected areas, indigenous leadership in governance of, you know, of all these types of conservation projects, ocean livelihoods that sustain people as well
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as ecosystems.
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So fishers need to be a part of the process, right?
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Of the conservation process.
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And then with her roots and shoots like program, it really goes to show
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that empowering youth makes a difference.
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So trust and equip young people with the information and knowledge that they can use later on.
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Like I said, in the next episode, you're gonna see young people wanna get in this industry to fight climate change and we have people who are talking them out of it.
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That can't happen.
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Let their passion reshape their movement.
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Like these young people, they need to have their passion lead.
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And then celebrate the small local wins as part of a global shift.
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Many small wins will lead towards huge things.
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I've been listening to this audio book called Atomic Habits.
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You've probably heard about it.
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And the author is speaking, he's like, when you do habits, you don't look at your final goal that you want, say you want to lose weight, you don't look at your final goal of
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losing weight.
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You look at all the little things you have to do to change your life habits to lose the weight.
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And you focus on those little things because those little things will lead
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to bigger things instead of just focusing on the big thing and you don't know how to get there.
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That's what you have to do.
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And the same thing, celebrate those little local winds.
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Those are big.
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Those are bigger than you thought.
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So Jane Goodall may not have studied the ocean, but she taught the world how to see with compassion, with patience, and with respect of the lives that move through wild spaces.
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If we applied even half of the mindset to the sea,
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We wouldn't be asking whether the ocean can be saved.
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We're already doing it.
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And I think this is something that we really need to think about going forward.
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We need to celebrate the legacy of people like Dr.
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Jane Goodall.
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But not only celebrate it, but we need to implement what they taught us.
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Jane taught us to empathize with nature.
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taught us to better understand nature and taught us to act for nature because it will protect us.
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And that's what I would like you to think about when you think about Dr.
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Jane Goodall.
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Not just someone who spent some time with chimpanzees back in the 60s, in the 50s and 60s, but someone who changed the way we look at animals and changed the way we do conservation
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today to make us better at conservation.
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But what she did have was hope that we can do even better.
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And that's what we need to do through not only younger generations, but even older generations and change the way we are living today to better fit what's happening
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tomorrow.
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That's it for today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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Thank you for listening.
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I am your host, Angel Luan from the true North strong and free.
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Have a great day.
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We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.